The pictures of the above 6870 show it requiring 2 power cables which they only require on their highest end cards... As a 5770 owner I would be pretty said if I couldn't upgrade to the 6000 series without getting a new power supply.Reply

From what I have been hearing on the Intertubes those aren't actually x800s in the traditional sense of the number. What would have been 6770/6750 under the old system are now 6870/6850. The actual 6870/6850 would probably be called 6950/6970.

Probably because development cycles are staggered so they can recoup some of the R&D costs before hitting the market with a new product, plus while development will certainly have started on Fermi's successor many moons ago, Fermi would almost certainly have been the primary focus with any moveable resources/development teams being shifted to work on it to get it out the doors faster.

It may not be as clear cut as Fermi = 6 months later (or however long it was) therefore successor will also be 6 months late, but if nVidia have only just finished rolling out the full Fermi line they are unlikely to have their new architecture ready to release within a reasonable time of AMD's new cards.Reply

they wouldn't introduce a new lineup before the existing one got cold.nobody would buy the old cards, they would just rot on the shelves until they hit deep discount.not that i wouldn't love that kind of price competition, but it's not realistic.Reply

It has to do with product cycles and Nvidia WAS late from their own public release projections for Fermi.

Nvidia released what many consider to be direct competition to AMDs 5XXX series. Now AMD is about to release a 6XXX series of cards, provided AMD delivers on improved performance, that will have a negative impact on Nvidia's profit potential on a line of cards that now might appear old to purchasers. That could pressure Nvidia to lower prices further, reducing profit potential on the very expensive Fermi.

Also, the recent bad habit of Nvidia to change product names 8800, 9800, etc... without real product improvement might rear its ugly head again in an attempt to soften that blow.

This isn't, for me anyway, a slamming of Nvidia, its a look at the market and who has the perceived leading products with the most bang for the buck. It wasn't that long ago that AMD was in Nvidia's position.Reply

I wonder how much better these gpu's will be over the Radeon 5xxx series in real world performance. I guess we will have to find out. It doesn't apper these Radeon 6xxx series will offer big performance gains but instead more of an update in certain areas to the existing Radeon 5xxx hardware much like what the Geforce 9xxx series was to the Geforce 8xxx series.

Although these are no more then rumors at this point from what read the next big overhaul for AMD's gpu's will be the Radeon 7xxx series which will offer a new GPU microarchitecture along with DirectX 11.1 and PCI-E 3.0 support. The rumored release date for the Radeon 7xxxx series is around Q4 of 2011. Reply

The performance gains should be quite nice and right in line with what we usually expect from generation to generation, at least if these are really the midrange replacements and the leaked benchmarks are anything to go by.Reply

Well it does seem like AMD has changed the numbering a little, I think it's a good idea, it never made sense to me that x9xx was the name for dual GPU's when they simply would use two x8xx's GPU's, why not do as they do with their CPU's and slap a x2 on there?

I look forward to the tests, but I don't expect Fermi busters just yet atleast.

As for the Llano pictures, damn I look forward to it, I've always been a strong supporter of AMD simply because they are the smaller company and they still deliver, but have never been that attracted to their mobile CPU's but if I can get a decent performing 14" Zacate based laptop from let's say Lenovo, I think I would become a very happy camper. I currently have a T500 the model with only Intel graphics and that's my big issue with this laptop, I'm not some gamer who has to be surrounded by games, but having my laptop play an HD movie is something I can need from time to time to pass some time.Reply

No.. Not really the GMA4500 is not strong enough, I've tried 1080P videos stored on the HDD and still it will lag, where I've tried weaker AMD laptops with HD3470 that will run them perfectly.

Well that's all good and stuff, and you know what? The HD5800 paired with a I7 will also do better, but why are we comparing two CPU/APU's aimed at two completely different markets? Sandy Bridge doesn't have the size advantage(In other words price advantage), Sandy Bridge isn't aimed at cheap and small Laptops/Netbooks and having Intel graphics on this laptop their drivers aren't to be desired, where my desktop with ATI has never had any problems.

And as I've already mentioned it's not about gaming if it was, I would choose neither!Reply

My guess is between 20-30% raw performance improvement over the 5xxx series. I think the greatest gain will be a smaller hit when running high AA at 2560x1600 if the new cards sport 1.5GB of memory or more as this has been it's weak point. Also I think the 6xxxx will also take less of a hit when running in DX11 mode which is another strong point of the Fermi cards.

Doubt that overclocking will be any better than the 5xxx series butcould run slightly cooler unless the factory clocks are higher than the 5xxx series.

I don't know why but I still feel drawn to the GTX470........waiting for the price to drop some more.... and then relook at the Radeon 7xxx series in 2012/2013.....Reply

So here's another card that has at least 1 external power connector on the end of the card (only saw one pic of the butt end of the cards). My dad's 5850 is on the top of the card when seated in the PCI slot. Both of these scenarios has negatives as if in a tight case the power cords can become problematic.

Does anyone know of a PSU manufacturer that has realized the biggest issue is having to put a severe bend in the power connector and released them with 90 degree bends similar to the HDD SATA cables? That would allow for much less stress on the connector and keep the overall profile smaller/cleaner.

And I clearly don't know anything about an NDA, but are you to tell me part of the NDA is not being able to tell us when the NDA is up?!?? That's cruel!Reply

I know of no such power supplies. You might find this tinyurl interesting:

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The relevant part is 10 paragraphs down. Apparently you can blame Anand for there not being any right angle molex/pciE power connectors!

”the only reason why it has been dismissed is because benchers - and those who regularly take out the power cables - prefer to be able to do so with ease, and having connections at a right angle would only hinder this. ”Reply

By the way: there are no "successors" to the 6800 series in the 5000 series. The 58xx were, in their generation, high end/enthusiast cards. The 57xx were mainstream. The performance level was completely missing in the 5000 series. That's why there is no real competition to the GTX460 for example at the moment.

The 68xx is actually a successor to the 48xx cards. 48xx were "performance" cards.